Deeplinks Blog posts about Content Blocking

Today, Russian-language Wikipedia, Livejournal, and other prominent RuNet websites have gone dark to protest Bill № 89417-6, which is currently being considered in the Duma. The bill is comprised of amendments that create an Internet blacklist which opponents say poses a serious threat to freedom of expression in Russia. The blackout follows in the footsteps of other similar high-profile protests against Internet censorship bills, including SOPA/PIPA in the United States, and DDL Intercettazioni in Italy.

Last week, a spokesman for the Pakistani Ministry of Information Technology announced that Pakistan was blocking access to Twitter because the site had not removed links to a competition on Facebook to post cartoon images of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Why Twitter and not Facebook? The spokesman went on to say that Facebook had agreed to address the Pakistani government’s concerns—Facebook later issued a statement saying they had blocked the content about the contest in Pakistan—but they viewed Twitter as recalcitrant.

“The government is in contact with Twitter and had asked them to remove the material. When they didn't, it was decided that the site would be blocked.”

Iran Continues March Towards “Halal Internet”

This past weekend, Iran’s minister of telecommunications announced that domestic institutions including banks, telecom companies, insurance firms, and universities are now prohibited from dealing with emails that do not come from an “.ir” domain name. This means that customers who use foreign email clients such as Gmail, Yahoo!, and Hotmail will have to switch to domestic Iranian accounts, which are subject to Iranian legal jurisdiction.

Kuwait’s Information Minister, Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, announced last week that Kuwait plans to pass new laws regulating the use of social networking sites such as Twitter in order to “safeguard the cohesiveness of the population and society.” The Information Minister’s announcement reflects growing panic over comments in social media deemed to incite the mounting sectarian tension between Sunnis and Shi’ites throughout the region.

According to a report from Ma’an News published today, the Palestinian Authority has ordered the blocking of websites belonging to eight news outlets critical of President Mahmoud Abbas. The report states that technicians at PalTel—the largest ISP in the West Bank—tweaked their proxy server and web cache daemon to block the sites, while other ISPs are using similar setups. The blocking is inconsistent across ISPs, with at least one failing to block certain sites on the list.

The blocked sites—which Ma’an discovered with the help of a new project, the Open Observatory of Network Interference, founded by Jacob Appelbaum and Arturo Filasto—include the following sites: